Crop Report: Seaweed Up, Rice Down

South Korea started detailed checks on all Japanese fishery and meat products for radiation contamination this week. In the photo, an inspection in Seoul on Tuesday.

The food story that’s getting attention today in South Korea is that sales of seaweed have doubled at some stores in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake-tsunami and nuclear accident.

Koreans perceive that the iodine content in seaweed will protect them from radiation poisoning. Only trace amounts of radiation connected with the Fukishima reactor have been found at South Korea’s monitoring stations.

But that hasn’t stopped a major media frenzy over the prospect of further contamination. Yonhap News Agency says that radiation fears may also be driving sales of protective face masks, though it notes that such masks are always popular at this time of year due to the yellow dust that blows in from China during springtime.

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Meanwhile, the government has started inspecting all fish imported from Japan for signs of radiation. (See photo)

Far less attention was paid to another major change in South Korea’s food industry. Statistics Korea, the government’s data agency, on Tuesday announced that only 45% of the nation’s farmers grew rice last year, the first time that figure has been below 50%.

Rice has long been considered the nation’s staple crop, the foundation of the country’s agriculture industry. It’s considered so important that South Korean trade negotiators were prepared to walk away from free-trade talks with the U.S. and European Union if they wanted rice to be included in such deals.

But the plunge in rice production received scant attention in the South Korean media, noted only by business newspapers.

Meanwhile, the percentage of farms devoted to fruit production grew to 15% from 12% a year earlier, Statistics Korea said. There are fewer rules on fruit-growing and farmers are plunging into new, high-value product areas, such as mangos that are kept warm in climate-controlled greenhouses.

Rice, meanwhile, is heavily subsidized, producing good and bad effects. On the plus side, South Korea is insulated from price spikes in the global rice market. On the other hand, South Koreans pay higher prices than people in other countries and farmers have less incentive to respond to market signals for rice.